by Jodie Bailey
Phoebe’s shoulders slumped. “No. Really?”
“Yes. Really.” Meghan stepped between Phoebe and the front door, trying to catch her attention. This was far from the first time Phoebe had let something slip right past her. She wasn’t a ditz, but she was married to her to-do list. Without it, her world spun out of orbit. “I knew I should have texted to remind you.” Meghan grinned.
Phoebe didn’t. Instead, a haunted look crossed her face, and she frowned. “Great. There’s a lot going on with the house needing to be ready and my dad breathing down my neck about it. It’s the first responsibility he’s let me really handle, and he’s not sure he trusts me after the way I acted after Robert was killed.” She sighed and shrugged off whatever she was thinking. “Know what? I’ll be back in a couple of hours. It shouldn’t take long to—”
“Wait.” Meghan grabbed Phoebe’s elbow. Maybe this was the way to keep her out of harm’s way until this mess straightened out. “I’ve got enough to do here without you running back and forth. Bring it after church tomorrow and we’ll start then.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah.” At this point, the idea of introducing Tate to Phoebe was growing more uncomfortable by the second. It was easier if they didn’t meet at all.
Phoebe pulled away, stepped around Meghan and was across the yard without offering another word.
Watching the car disappear around the bend in the drive, Meghan narrowed her eyes. One skill she’d learned in the army was how to read people, and there was one thing for certain. Phoebe was not herself. And as soon as things leveled off, Meghan was going to find out why.
NINE
For the first time in his professional life, Tate had no answers. He wiped his face on the hem of his T-shirt and surveyed the small lawn. It had taken less than an hour to mow, just as Meghan had predicted. Not nearly enough time to erase the horrors of the day or to devise any answers, but plenty of time to generate a restlessness that grew with every step behind the protesting old gas push mower Meghan had dug out of the barn.
He missed the manual push mower at the bed-and-breakfast. It had required force to get it moving, exertion to keep it going. And the lawn at the place had been huge. Even though it was tucked in a neighborhood near the harbor, the lawn’s square footage was phenomenal. The physical activity required to keep the B&B up to par had been enough to untangle many knots. It had kept him sane after Stephanie left him, enabling him to get exercise while his heart prayed for direction. The yard had given him time to grow his relationship with the God who now guided his life, time to realize how much a marriage without equal faith could destroy a man when his wife wanted to keep driving her life down a dangerous path.
A cloud of gnats scattered as he swiped them from his face. Tate hadn’t had his own yard to mow in more than a year, not since a crew of armed men kicked in his door, gunning for Ethan and Ashley, who’d taken refuge there from a terror cell. Sometimes it seemed his whole life was dictated by people who wanted him dead.
He brushed the mower’s grip, the cracked rubber rough under his touch. This was what he did. He protected. He stuck close to the shadows so he could step in and have other peoples’ backs. The team needed him. And he needed them, because he had no idea who he’d be without a mission to guide him.
He turned the mower and headed for the shed at the corner of the house. Still, stability would be nice. A life without terrorists, executions and public suicides. Some days, it would be nice to go to bed at night knowing tomorrow would be routine and boring.
It didn’t help that every step behind the stinking mower had jarred loose another memory about Meghan. Good memories, all. Memories he’d forgotten...or shoved aside. Being here made him feel alive for the first time since the knife had entered his chest.
He stopped walking. No. For the first time since he’d arrived at work on a Wednesday morning to find her gone.
Worse, every time they were in close proximity, his response to her grew. It had been building all day, the need to stand a little closer, to touch her. And on the porch earlier? To kiss her until she made the memories disappear.
Always, though, the mission stood in the way. She was his to protect, not his to fall in love with. Until Phoenix was locked away, all he could offer her was an uncertain future with no safe place to land.
“Finished already?” Meghan appeared at the corner of the house in paint-stained jeans and an old gray army T-shirt. Her short dark hair was pushed back in a headband, and she looked the exact same as she had on their last op together. Young. Beautiful. The picture of wide-eyed innocence.
The facade of innocence made even the hardest of criminals trust her...and underestimate her. It was a facade she’d carefully cultivated. Meghan had fought more in her childhood than most people would in a lifetime, and she’d battled back to win every time. He admired her in a way he’d never admired another human being. Her strength. Her tenacity. Her sheer bravery in the face of everything from armed terrorists to camel spiders.
Tate quirked a half grin. The one thing she cringed at was snakes. He’d relished every time he’d been able to step in and protect her from slithering serpents. Made him feel bigger, as though she needed him a little bit. As though he could spend his life making sure she never had to fight off anything again.
Flipping his hand in front of his face, he swiped the gnats and the thought away. She was his former partner, and any affection he’d ever percolated for her didn’t matter. She was married to her job, and the only thing Tate was any good at was his. He’d learned that the hard way.
“Hey.” Meghan waved her arms over her head. “You asleep on your feet? I told you to catch some rack time.”
“Whatever.” He shoved everything else aside and leaned heavily on the mower, the weight of his world magnifying gravity.
“I asked if you’re finished.”
“Yeah.” He glanced over his shoulder at the old horse pasture, barely visible on the other side of the trees. If she had a bigger mower—
“Don’t even think about it.” There was laughter in her voice. “You’d kill yourself trying to tame the weeds. I don’t want to haul you to the hospital with heat exhaustion because you’re a stubborn old soldier.”
He turned to her. Sure enough, she was smiling, the gleam in her eye familiar and new all at the same time. She knew him. Knew exactly what he was thinking, and she called him to reality when he was out of line. Just as if they’d never stopped working together. Just the way he needed someone to do.
He scrubbed his cheek, rough with too many days’ worth of stubble. Man, he was past exhausted if he was losing control of his emotions this way. Maybe he should have listened to her and caught a power nap.
Not that he’d ever tell her she was right.
“You puzzle out anything while you were out here sweating to death?” She stepped closer, holding out a large glass of ice water, condensation dripping down the sides.
“I figured out I miss mowing grass, and Michigan summers are hotter than the rest of the world gives them credit for. But I didn’t figure out this mission, other than I need to take you to—”
“No.” She hadn’t wavered a bit on letting him take her to headquarters where it was safe. “And June is rarely this hot. But I’ll tell you what. After you finish your water, you can help me hang the front door. Phoebe came by, but she won’t be back till tomorrow. I’d love to have the door hung today so the gnats will stop sneaking in around the cracks.”
Someone had come and gone and he’d missed it? Meghan had warned him Phoebe would be there, which meant he should have been watching for her arrival, but somehow, in his grass-mowing haze, he’d lost focus. “You trust her?”
“I’ve known her since my first day at college. She walked into my dorm room thinking it was hers.” Meghan smiled a quick smile, one of the few truly
joyful ones he’d ever seen on her. “Turned out she was in the whole wrong building.”
Tate tightened his jaw. With the story she’d told him, it was probable their hacker tracked her out of high school. A friend she’d met in college wasn’t much of a threat, but he still wasn’t a fan of someone else knowing he was on the property, of someone else having access to Meghan, not when their hacker was a ghost and he had no way of knowing who Meghan’s link to him was.
“What?” She shook her head, watching his thoughts play out on his face. “I get it. You’re suspicious, but there comes a time when you have to make the decision to trust. I trust Phoebe.”
The way you trusted Yvonne? Nope. Can’t say that. Rather than set off her temper, he swigged ice water, letting the cold hit the roof of his mouth and seep down his throat, sparking the same sensation shoveling in grape shaved ice too fast as a kid did. He held the empty glass out to her and pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth, trying to ease the ache.
She took the glass and held it loosely by her side. “Help me hang the door, and I’ll show you where the weed whacker is. Maybe you can think some more while you attack the pests growing on the side of the house.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder, then turned to walk away. “New door’s in the shed. I painted it last week, but hanging it is a two-person job.”
“Getting soft in your civilian life, McGuire?” And bossy, but that was another observation he’d keep to himself.
She tossed a saucy smirk over her shoulder. “Spoken like a man who has never tried to corral a room full of middle schoolers on the day before Christmas break.”
“You’ve got me there.” Tate watched the patch of grass directly in front of the mower. Something about her sass was too much, with the rug already jerked out from under his life. “You going to miss school?”
“Maybe.” Her pace didn’t slow, and Tate looked up to find himself staring at the short, spiky hair at the back of her head. “No. I’ll have plenty to keep me busy here. Some of the harder cases, they’ll need to be tutored to gain the academic ground they’ve lost. My experience comes into play there.”
“Along with tracking them through the woods if they run away.” He caught up with her and pushed the mower along beside her, trying not to watch her face too intently.
She laughed. “If it comes to that.” She sobered quickly. “I really hope it doesn’t come to that. I hope...” She stopped, fixed on something across the driveway, on the other side of the small shed where the prepped front door waited. “I hope they’re happy enough, loved enough, to stay.”
There was a wistfulness in her voice. She knew the truth as well as he did. Some would stay. And some would do their level best to push every button Meghan had. Some would accept love and flourish. Some never would, and only God knew what would happen when they left this place of last chances.
Tate started to speak, then realized he had nothing of value to say. Her passion was contagious, though. What would it be like to make a difference to a kid who needed love?
Tate pushed the mower across the dirt driveway, wishing he had something to contribute. Back in the day it had been easy, but they’d shared so much then. Now she walked beside him, practically a stranger, even though her appearance was the same as his old partner’s, she walked and talked the same as his old partner and she gave him attitude the same as his old partner.
His smile flared, then faded. Separate experiences had changed them, and no matter how much they still knew about each other, the divergence in their lives left them an unsettling kind of familiar strangers.
Tate didn’t like it. He didn’t like one single thing happening in his life right now.
Except for Meghan.
He looked over his shoulder at the pasture again. It would take two days or more to mow, but maybe if he started now, he’d have everything prayed out by the time he was finished.
* * *
If he never hung another door again, it would be too soon. For the rest of his life, Tate would never take for granted a barrier between him and the outside world. As much as he loved physical labor, this was the biggest beast he’d ever tamed.
Meghan sat on her heels in the open doorway, safety goggles in place and a cordless drill in her hand. She wielded it with as much practice as she’d once wielded her pistol.
Her confidence shouldn’t have made him want to sit and watch her work. Although he could. Contentedly. For the rest of the day.
He needed to think of something else fast, or he might settle in and watch to his heart’s content. Tate swiped at his forehead with the back of his wrist, sawdust and grit scrubbing his skin, watching her secure a screw in the strike plate. “How did you get so good at home improvements?”
She waited for the drill to stop whirring. “Somebody had to do it, and I was in a position to take the lead. I went to the home improvement store and had them teach me everything I needed to know.” She held her hand out for another screw, and he dropped it into her palm. “Everything you see inside is me, with a little help from Phoebe and a few volunteers. It’s been good therapy.”
Tate leaned against the wood siding, giving in to the temptation to watch her. At first, he’d tried to step in and do the heavy lifting, but he saw the way the wind blew. She only wanted him as a gofer.
Fine. It was her house, even though he itched to grab a hammer, a drill, something to make himself useful. But he’d been right earlier. Watching her was almost as much fun. “Therapy? What were you trying to get over?”
The drill stopped whirring, the screw halfway set. Meghan stared at it, as though she’d forgotten what to do.
Tate squatted beside her, knees cracking in protest after standing for so long. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” She came back from far away, driving the screw in as if it had attacked her.
Tate arched an eyebrow. When she held out her hand for another screw, he closed his fingers around the ones he held, refusing to pass one over. “You wouldn’t let me keep quiet earlier. I’m returning the favor.”
Her open palm never wavered. “Knock it off, Walker. The sooner this door is in, the sooner I can turn on the air-conditioning.”
It was tempting, but so was learning her secret. “You forget I’ve slogged months through the desert. Michigan heat waves don’t scare me.” Although being this close to Meghan ranked up there.
She pursed her lips, the corner twitching into a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I was getting over how bossy my partner was.”
“Whatever.” He dropped the screw into her palm, letting her make the joke. Sooner or later, she’d talk. She always did.
After testing the security of the strike plate, Meghan propped her wrists on her knees and let her hands dangle. “Done.” She pivoted to stand.
Tate reached out to pull her up, but she held out the drill to him instead. She pulled the door shut, checking the perimeter, then opened it again. “Let’s get this mess cleared, then I think dialing the AC to fifty will be good.”
Cold sounded like the best relief in the world. Cold and a shower. Between mowing the yard and fitting the door, Tate’s skin was a plaster of sawdust and dirt. He leaned over and hooked the handles on a small plastic bag.
The window above him shattered, raining glass into the house.
“Tate!” Meghan scrambled toward him as the gunshot’s echo died.
He didn’t hesitate, but raised enough to grab her around the waist and shove her into the house as a thud hit the siding and another gunshot ricocheted off the trees. “Get into the kitchen.” He pushed her toward the other room, desperate to get her out of harm’s way, chest aching from the adrenaline jolt.
She fought, breaking free. “I’m not leaving you to fight alone.” Meghan dropped behind the couch, grabbing his arm to bring him with her. Back pressed against th
e sofa, she checked her ammo while he pulled his gun from its holster. She glanced at him grimly, fire behind her eyes. “Just like old times.”
“You’re not half as funny as you think you are.” He jabbed a finger toward the kitchen. “You need to take cover.” If anything happened to her...
“And you—”
Another shot pinged off metal, echoing across the trees.
Meghan winced. “My car.”
“Or the pickup. We left it in the driveway.” He turned toward the kitchen, calculating the distance they’d have to run to the trees, where they could skirt through cover to make it to around the pasture. “Think we can get to mine in the barn?”
Meghan nodded, scanning the wall as though she could see through it. “There’s a trail from the barn to the main road if your clunker has four-wheel drive.”
“It does, but I can’t guarantee it will work.”
“It’d better.” She swiped her hair from her face. “Shooting stopped.”
The silence was thick, more ominous than gunshots. Their attacker was probably creeping closer to the house.
They were safe if they could get out the back. And if the gunman was alone. How likely was it they’d been flanked and someone was waiting in the trees?
Even more pertinent, how had they been found in the first place?
The window on the far side of the door shattered, the gunshot’s crack closer this time.
No way was he going to sit here while some coward took potshots at them from a distance. No one got to pin them down. He leaned forward. “We’ve got two options. Wait for him to come through the door and pray we get a shot off first, or get out now.”
“I prefer option two, but then none of our questions get answered. He might know where we are, but we know where he is, too. I promise you he knows a lot more than we do.”
She was right. Answers lay on the other side of a sniper’s rifle. If they left, they abandoned any chance of asking the questions. But if they stayed, they might be facing God in heaven and getting every answer they ever wanted long before they wanted them.